First Do No Harm
by H Max Marius
Summary: Where did section 31 come from? What else have they done over the years? Why are they so interested in Dr. Bashir? And why have they just attempted to assassinate the USS Voyager's Holographic Doctor at a medical conference?
1. Genesis

**A/N:** Many thanks again to my talented Beta-reader Straitjackit! And to Encrypted Pseudonym for applying her trek knowledge to this story. I'm really not sure how far or long this story is going to go, but I do have a very specific conclusion mapped out. But hey, getting there is all the fun! Right?

**Genesis**

_"Desdemona's building a rocket ship. Desdemona's going away."_

William Donovan drank in the atmosphere of the small bar. From the sing-song accents of the wait-staff to the ancient Jimmy Buffet tune blaring over the background noise, the place screamed Caribbean. Thirty years since he'd last set foot here, and the place had barely changed a lick. The same grubby wooden tables covered in the names of those who'd sat there. The dusty marlin that still hung above the bar. The only real difference was that the people occupying the multi-hued floral shirts and khaki bermuda shorts were all middle-aged civilians and not the red-hot rocket-jocks who once were stationed on the next island over.

"Bill!" A tall thin man with light brown hair sprang from behind one of the tables and waved him over. Donovan noticed that the man's shirt was a mix of flaming rockets and flowers.

As he wove his way through the half-full bar to the corner table, his companion flagged the waitress. Pointing at his beer bottle, he held up two fingers. Reaching behind the bar, the girl held up a lime. Smiling, his brown haired friend nodded and gave her a thumbs up.

_"She's got a passion for cookies, a crew full of rookies, there's gonna be a hell of a blow."_

Bill glanced up at the speaker directly over the table. "A bit loud here don't'cha think Max?"

Admiral Maxwell Forrest, head of Earth's Starfleet program leaned back in his seat on the other side of the table grinned. "And who was it who taught me about conversational security?"

"You still look fit enough to climb in one of those beasts and blast for an attack run!" Glancing down at his own expanding waistline Donovan shook his head ruefully, deciding against reaching for any of the tortilla-chips in the basket sitting on the table.

"First call I made when I became head of Starfleet was to Arizona to get my sweetheart back."

"You mean..." Donovan schooled his expression into a look of surprised interest.

"Yep! Adelaide! You know, that old F-88 still purrs like the day she was new." Forrest grinned like a kid showing off his new Christmas present.

"With your staff? I wouldn't doubt it for a minute."

The girl arrived with their drinks.

"Thank you Miri, add these to my tab." Max smiled at the attractive waitress.

"Been here long enough to be on a first name basis?" Donovan asked.

"Command trick Bill. Besides, I find it helps ensure good service." The admiral scanned the bar while taking a sip from his bottle.

Satisfied there were no obvious eavesdroppers, he transitioned to more serious matters. "So Bill, How are things at the Agency?"

"Much like they have been since we rounded up the last of Colonel Green's known cadre… very, very quiet." Donovan made his own sweep of the room disguised as a mildly lecherous tracking of the attractive server as she walked to another table.

"Even with the historical record, it's hard to convince the politicians of the necessity of maintaining strong vigilance. It's the NSA debacle of 15 years ago all over again." Bill picked up his beer and began squeezing the slice of lime down the bottle's neck.

Max stared out the window in the direction of the old spacecom base. "I've seen the news reports. 'What does the United States need a Central Intelligence Agency for now that the world is not only at peace, but we have a central world government.' They have a point in that respect, but that does not obviate the necessity of having a quality intelligence apparatus."

Bill looked up with a morose expression. "It's convincing Congress that they should continue to fund the Agency, even in this new world order, that has become the roadblock."

"The era of the nation-state is over, the era of the world-state has begun." Forrest paused as the statement hung between them.

"William, what if I could offer you the opportunity to continue your operation on behalf of Starfleet. Would you be interested?"

Only his years of practice kept the surprise from registering on his face. "All my reports indicate that you are pleased with Admiral Janke's leadership of Starfleet Intelligence. Are you offering me her position?"

"Not exactly." Forrest slid a blue folder across the table. "You, of course, are familiar with the NX-01 mission."

A slight smile tugged at the corners of Donovan's face. "I've had my reports." He drawled.

The Admiral gave him a sharp look and then grinned.

"Always the spook, Bill. Let's just say that there are some aspects of the mission and some sealed reports that are not common knowledge outside of a very restricted circle of people." Max reached out and tapped the folder. "Some of what we have discovered, and things we are likely to encounter have the potential to be destructive on a scale unimaginable."

Bill picked up the folder and pretended to read the contents. "These 'cybernauts' your people uncovered in the Antarctic?"

Forrest's eyes started to bug out of his head, but he quickly brought his expression back under control. "The reports on that haven't even been written yet."

"Just proving my value and abilities to you, Admiral."

"You hit on a good point though." Max swallowed a drink from his beer. "Captain Archer thinks these creatures may have some kind of connection with Cochrane's Princeton Speech. If so, and if that wasn't one of his whiskey induced hallucinations, we have something on our hands here that in the most mildest forms can only be described as explosive."

Bill reached for the basket of chips and the bowl of salsa. "Explosive indeed, time travel, galactic warfare, sounds like twencen space opera. How does this tie to me?"

"Once upon a time, in this out of the way corner of the Caribbean, a talented young spook with a famous ever-so-many great grandfather, shared a bottle of rum and a wealth of wisdom with a hot-headed fighter-jock. There was one thing he told me that night that always rang true. Could an organization as visible and seemingly inept as the CIA actually acquire the intelligence we were needing and even receiving in the field?"

"There's wisdom in rum, even if that young man spoke too much." Bill crunched another chip and chased it with his beer.

"William, Admiral Janke's operation is too visible. The information outlined in that folder is so sensitive that at this time only the participants on Enterprise, Admiral Janke, and myself are familiar with it."

Max fiddled with the empty beer bottle on the table in front of him.

"Starfleet has a dual mandate. Exploration and Planetary Protection. Exploration we've got covered in spades. What I need is a blacker than black covert intelligence operation to protect this planet. I'm asking you to tear another page from your ancestor's book. Will you run it?"

Bill swirled the last of his beer around the bottom of the bottle. "Maxwell, I may have just what you are looking for."


	2. Obsession

**A/N: **Remember, reviews are what keep the things we write readable! Please provide your feedback on both the story and the mechanics as without your review, I cannot improve! Thanks again to Straitjackit and Encrypted Psuedonym for their work Betaing this piece!

**Obsession**

_1_

"Ezri! Wake up!"

The insistent voice stabbed through the fog that coated her mind. Groaning, she pushed her head deep under the pillow to block out the noise. Unfortunately it was too late.

_"What is that pup up to now?" Curzon groused._

_"Whatever it is, it better be good." The husky voice of Jadzia, Ezri's immediate predecessor groaned._

_"Curzon, should I start a book on the subject?" The Dax symbiont slyly inquired._

_"I'm in for an hour on Section 31 research." Jadzia jumped in._

More of her symbiont's former hosts began trying for a piece of the action. Giving up on getting any further sleep, she Relegated the banter of the multiple personalities that resided inside of her to a back corner of her consciousness.

Groaning even louder, Ezri sat up and looked around. Out the windows, she could see the lights of a fair sized city under a starlit sky. The was room bathed in a bluish glow from the terminal screen on the desk.

She looked away from the figure sitting hunched over at the desk and instead took in the rest of the room. The large bed, two plush chairs and fancy entertainment holoprojector pretty much cinched it that she was in a hotel room. Temporary Starfleet quarters would not have had the fancy model of the holoprojector, and while the chairs would have been comfortable, they would not have been patterned on Twentieth Century designs.

Finally, she looked over to the rooms other occupant.

"Lights, low." Ezri stated to the room system.

As the dim yellow glow filled the room, the rumpled stated of the rooms other occupant became visible. Doctor Julian Bashir was still the excitable and sometimes awestruck kid who had fallen head over heals for the Dax symbiont's previous host. Twelve years out of the Starfleet Medical program, he was cultivating gray hairs at his temples for the distinguished and mature look they gave him. It was clear from the dark circles under his eyes and way his back was hunched that he had not yet gotten any sleep.

Ezri glanced at the chronograph on the nightstand. The conference they were to be attending began its first sessions in six hours.

"Julian, right now Curzon and Jadzia are arguing over who gets to wring your neck for waking us up." Ezri grinned to take the sting out of the words, then looked worried. "Have you slept at all tonight?"

"Not important, I think I've found something." Julian flicked his right hand dismissively then motioned her to join him at the computer.

Pulling the blanket around her like a robe, she walked over and stood behind him. "Sleep, is always important." She yawned. "Is it an error in your presentation later _today_ on the flu outbreak at the Cetlick colony?"

He glanced at the time then up at her as she stressed 'today'. His excitement shone through his fatigue. "No, Section 31, I think I've figured out when they were founded."

_"YES! Pay up boys!" _Jadzia's exultant shout tumbled into her conscious mind.

To have a part of her own mind be that awake and happy at such an hour of the night added an extra bite to her reply. "You stayed up all night to figure that out? Why?!"

"Know your enemy, my love." He spun his chair around to face her. "To destroy them, you must understand them."

She noted the slightly wild look in his eyes. Combined with his recent behavior of spending every free moment running computer searches through the vast number of Federation databases, Ezri was beginning to become professionally worried. During the Dominion War he'd had his duties, both as a Doctor and as head of sector intelligence to keep him busy. With the coming of peace, his life had become much more quiet and dull.

"Julian, as a Starfleet Counselor, I must inform you that your interest in this organization borders on an obsession."

"That may be dearest, but answer me some questions before locking me in the padded room." He reached out an took her hand. "If you do, I promise I'll come to bed."

"And sleep?" She asked.

He nodded, looking very much like a little boy making a deal with his mother.

Ezri sighed. "Okay, first question."

"After Worf took the Defiant to battle the Borg near Earth, do you remember what he told us about following it back in time?"

Closing her eyes, Ezri consulted with the Dax symbiont to confirm the events. "Yes."

Turning, Julian grabbed the terminal and slid it across the desk so it was closer to her. "I've uncovered a pre-Federation Starfleet report regarding the discovery of a crash site containing bodies with 'cybernetic' enhancements." He pointed at the line on the screen. "One report indicating the breadth and scope of the crash site, and then the entire thing drops completely out of sight."

She was distinctly unimpressed. "So? They found the Borg Sphere's crash site. I would have been surprised if they hadn't."

He minimized the window about the crash and brought up several windows showing newspaper articles from the same time period. "At about the same time, the United States Government formally disbanded the last of its intelligence services, namely the Central Intelligence Agency."

He slid the window aside on the screen and pointed to a second one. "In addition, two weeks before the Congressional vote to dissolve the CIA, one of it's top administrators, the Deputy Director of Operations, Mr. William Donovan, resigned and took the position of special assistant to Admiral Christine Janke, chief of Starfleet Intelligence."

Ezri skimmed the article on the screen. "Sounds like a smart move to me."

Julian stood up and stretched. "Too smart."

He walked over to the window and looked out at the lights. "With his history and background, one would have expected to see a marked improvement in the intelligence capabilities of Starfleet at that time, after all, he was the proverbial 'pro from Dover'." He turned around and pointed at the terminal. "Instead, for the entire time he is listed on the staff, the Intelligence Division shows only the incremental improvements of an organization following a normal development curve, not the quantum leap Mr. Donovan could and should have brought them."

Ezri picked at the connections he had made. They fit, but so did at least a dozen other explanations.

"Sounds circumstantial." She answered.

Julian pulled off his uniform. Wearing only his shorts he climbed into bed. As Ezri climbed in beside him, he leaned over and kissed her then lay back on his pillow.

"Circumstantial is all this organization has or is going to leave behind." He said.

_2_

The chair creaked as the officer leaned back from his desk. Carefully he stretched the muscles of his back. Rolling his neck to relieve the stiffness there, he stared at the chronograph ticking along on the monitor in front of him. Six hours until the conference started, eight until the session he was interested in began.

The only light came from the screen on his desk. In the muted blue glow, his shadow dominated the rest of the room, flowing across the small bed, along the floor and up the opaqued window. A muted chirp sounded from the unit on the desk.

His skin looked gray as the light reflected off his knuckles as he toggled open the connection. "Report, Sedgwick." The man in the shadows said.

The monitor's speaker, gave Sedgwick's voice a metallic sound. "The unit is in place."

"Very well." The shadow replied. "Execute overwatch, rendezvous option echo. Out." He reached out and broke the connection.

He leaned forward, the light from the monitor playing across his weathered features. "Okay, Doctor. Time for Mr. Sloan's appointment." He reached out and plunged the room into complete darkness as he switched off the monitor.


	3. First Pawn

**A/N:** For those of you used to the update rates on my Narnia fics, this one is progressing slowly. Of course, I had a bit of burnout after attempting Nanowrimo for the first time too. Thanks again to my muse and Beta-reader Straitjackit... (I'll make a Trekker of her yet! Oh well, I hear her Dad is a Star Trek fan and is helping her with the Trek specific stuff! Thank you, Sir!)

**First Pawn**

_1_

Over a thousand of the United Federation of Planet's greatest living medical minds were gathered in this one room. Facility staff were scrambling all through the convention hall like so many worker ants. An apt description considering their insectile heritage and appearance. The Andorians were complaining that the air was too warm, some of the human guests were begging for blankets, the Tellarite contingent wanted larger chairs, and at least one species had complained of feeling euphoric and asked that the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere be reduced by half.

Standing on a transparent aluminum stage at the front of the auditorium, a tall, rotund Andorian swept his gaze back and forth across the room with the hypnotic regularity of a metronome. His voice rising and falling in time with his movements.

"…And so, at its core, the disease referred to as The Phage encountered by the Voyager crew in the Delta Quadrant carries the earmarks of genetic enhancement tampering…"

Of those thousand great minds, those who weren't grousing were bored. If it weren't for the extreme interest in the upcoming speaker, most of them would have drifted away from the conference already to explore the social life of this year's host planet.

In the twentieth row of the floor level, a short, wiry, balding man sat. His attention raptly focused on the speaker. Two seats over, an exotically attractive woman sat. Her Klingon brow, head ridges and steely focus giving the impression that she too was deeply in tune with the speaker droning on the stage.

Between them sat a tall, athletically built human male. The shock of brown hair atop his head mussed throughly from slouching in the seat. Like a small child at a recital, he kept fidgeting in his seat, to the occasional annoyance of his two companions.

Leaning over to the man, he whispered in a somewhat less than hushed baritone voice.

"Gee Doc, and I thought you could be boring."

"Mr. Paris," The lightly built, balding man turned to scowl, "I'd appreciate if you did not disparage the speaker when they are clearly building a premise based upon one of my papers."

At that same moment, B'elana backhanded Tom Paris on the left arm.

"Ow!" Tom hissed under his breath.

"Tom, behave!" In the hushed, serious tone that B'elana often used to discipline their quarter Klingon young daughter.

"We are here as the Doctor's guests to witness his first presentation to the Federation League of Hippocrates."

At his wife's scolding, Tom slumped back into his seat. Arms crossed, he absentmindedly rubbed the bicep where she'd hit him.

"Okay, but when they refer to our excursion, do they have to make it sound like it's already etched in the history books?" With an undignified pout, he surrendered to B'elana's will.

Polite applause rippled outward unevenly through the auditorium as the Andorian speaker concluded his presentation. At the podium, he dipped his antenna in acknowledgment then stepped from the stage. A rather harried looking human, wearing a replica 20th century tweed suit and a blue standard issue lab smock, hustled to the center of the stage.

Mopping his flushed forehead with a handkerchief from the breast pocked of his jacket, he paused to gather in a few deep breaths.

"Before our next speaker, there are a few housekeeping notes. The facility staff asks that participants please not leave active experiments unattended on the main convention floor. It seems that a blue, mutagenic goo is attempting to take over the display of the Altair Medical Research Institute."

A loud bustling came from one of the upper balconies as the AMRI representatives bolted for the door.

"Also, a hovervan, registration &-2361, has been left parked on the roof lot beyond it's allotted time. The driver is asked to please remove it to the designated parking zone."

Clearing his throat, his harried demeanor morphed into that of a master of ceremonies. General lighting in the auditorium reduced as a single spotlight focused in on the speaker. On the back wall of the stage, holo-images of famous Federation and Pre-Federation doctors from the many worlds appeared, regressing to infinity as if representing the mass of sentient existence moving forward.

"Fellow sentients..." In the control booth, the sound tech pumped the bass and reverb on the speakers. "Over the years, as the Federation has grown, this body has welcomed many new species to make presentations before us. Today, it is my honor to introduce our first presentation by a self-aware holographic program! Presenting his thesis on the life-cycle of the Delta Quadrant Ocampa, the USS Voyager's Emergency Medical Holographic Program! Doctor…" The host bowed and waved his arm to the podium.

Standing beside Tom and B'elana, the Doctor smiled broadly and waved at the applauding crowd.

With a huge grin, Tom clapped him on the shoulder. "Knock 'em dead, Doc!"

Moving off carefully through the mass of curious and well wishers, he approached the stage. Hovercams drifted above the throng, documenting the historic moment for playback on hundreds of worlds.

As he passed the front row, there was a blinding blue-white flash, followed by an abrupt, high pitched, and multi-tonal whine. With a mass scream, those closest to the explosion began bolting for the exits.

When the panic subsided, it was as if the Doctor was never there.

_2_

Doctors from ten different worlds were still fighting to get out of the exit door at the end of Aisle C. Ten rows in front of that melee, an attractive brunette took a deep breath to focus herself then turned her deep, black eyes on her companion.

"Reg, what just happened?" Her thick Betazed accent reasserting itself as she concentrated on blocking out the panicked emotions of the hundreds of people fleeing the auditorium.

As a Starfleet Counselor, Deanna Troi-Riker had been looking forward to studying the reactions of the assembled crowd to the presentation by a new and unexpected sentient lifeform. Now she was trapped in a classic case of mass panic propagation in a crowded environment.

Looking about, she studied the room. Without reaching out her empathic senses, she could distinguish between the civilian and Starfleet Doctors in attendance. While the civilians were fighting their way up the aisles to the exits, Starfleet trained personnel were climbing over the seatbacks to get to the point where the Holographic Doctor had disappeared.

Standing, Reginald Barclay's right hand was clenched in a fist behind his back. His left hand was tangled in his thinning light brown hair. Above a narrow face, lines creased his forehead as he stared at the point of the flash. "From here it looked like the holo-emitter blew out."

Deanna looked over at him and rested her hand on his shoulder. "Holotechnology is your specialty Reg. Is there something we can do?"

Barclay dropped into his seat and began blindly reaching around underneath it. Grasping the strap of a medium sized bag, he pulled it up into his lap.

"Where's my tricorder?" He started digging through the bag, setting various gift-wrapped shapes on the floor. "Ahhh…Found it."

Barclay started playing his fingers over the controls as if it were a pocket sized musical instrument, occasionally muttering the word "interference".

After about half a minute he started blindly walking across the auditorium towards where the Doctor had disappeared. He was so totally focused on the tricorder that he did not notice the various, panic stricken people who brushed by him on their way out the door.

With a shake of her head at his single-minded focus, Deanna swept the gifts into the bag and followed him down the aisle.

_3_

On the other side of the auditorium Ezri's fair skin paled as she watched the panic develop and spread. In spite of that fear, she focused herself on the event that had triggered the panic. "Julian, he was a hologram, is there something we can do?"

Bashir also had his tricorder out, but instead of scanning the floor area, he was scanning the ceiling. As he watched the readings, he detected a flicker of movement indicating a vehicle departure from the roof.

"Damn!" He tore his eyes off of the scanner to look at the dark, shadowed ceiling of the auditorium. " Come on, we've got to get to the security center!"

"But..." Ezri spun towards where the sentient hologram had disappeared. "What about the Doctor?"

Her query fell on empty space as Julian had already bolted for the nearest exit. Somehow, he managed to wiggle and worm his way forward and through the doorway.

Caught in the press of people trying to escape from the conference hall, Ezri barely caught up to him in the hallway where he had a security guard cornered.

As she ran up, she heard him rattling off commands into the guard's com unit.

"Priority alpha security alert." Bashir hurriedly rattled of a string of clearance numbers to establish his authority to call such an alert. "Lock down the security computers and dump their records to secure storage."

Julian handed the bulky civilian com unit back to the security guard. Still intensely focused he drilled the young man with his eyes. "You understand my authority?"

The guard nodded.

"Good, I need directions to this facility's security office. Stat."

With the instructions relayed and directions in hand, Ezri was hauled off on another whirlwind run through the convention center's corridors.

_4_

"B'elana, help me look." Tom Paris was prostrate on the floor where the Doctor had last been seen, feeling around under the seats for the Doctor's mobile emitter.

"Please, everyone step back carefully!" B'elana underpinned her words with a Klingon growl.

With their undivided attention, she calmly proceeded to give out instructions.

"We are looking for a small device, about so big," she held her finger and thumb apart, "it is gray and slightly trapezoidal in shape. It is very important that we find it."

"Will everyone please turn off your tricorders!" Reginald Barclay's voice boomed over the crowd.

"Why?" A perturbed voice shouted back.

Reg closed his eyes and shook his head. "Sir, as a doctor, would you let an engineer perform surgery on you?"

"No!"

"Then please, turn off your tricorder so I can do my job." Barclay answered.

Tom tore his imploring gaze away from his wife. "Reg! Can you tune that to look for the Doc's holoemitter?"

Deanna joined B'elana in trying to get the crowd to step back and turn off the various tricorders that were interfering with Barclay's.

Reginald's fingers danced across the controls as he reset the device to seek out the specific resonance signature of the Doctor's emitter. Immediately, the tricorder began beeping.

"I'm getting something, over this way." Barclay set off through the crowd like an out of control bulldozer, once again totally focused on the instrument in his hands. Tom, B'elana, and Deanna strung out in a line behind him.

Reg skidded to a stop as the display resolved the signals it was receiving. "Tom, this doesn't look good, I'm getting four separate readings, none of which are large enough alone to be the emitter."

Tom and B'elana exchanged horrified glances. "Where?" They asked together.

Following Barclay's directions they collected up the scorched pieces of metal.


End file.
